After President Obama’s recent statement in support of a strong net neutrality law, many European citizens will be disappointed at the EU’s latest position as the political battle for the Internet reprises. […]

It is now moving into a new stage which means it has to go to the Council of Ministers - the governments of the 28 countries. The Council is examining it for the first time, and needs to come to its own position. That’s what this is all about. […]

As an alternative to the European Parliament’s provisions, the Council is promoting what it calls a ‘principles-based approach’. But when you read closely, this is not about a principle of net neutrality, it is about principles for traffic management – in other words, for the exact opposite:

"Clear principles for traffic management in general, as well as the obligation to maintain sufficient network capacity for the internet access service regardless of other services also delivered over the same access." […]

Whistleblower receives several standing ovations in Swedish parliament as he wins Right Livelihood award. […]

Snowden, who is in exile in Russia, addressed the parliament by video from Moscow. In a symbolic gesture, his family and supporters said no one picked up the award on his behalf in the hope that one day he might be free to travel to Sweden to receive it in person. […]

Snowden is wanted by the US on charges under the Espionage Act. His chances of a deal with the US justice department that would allow him to return home are slim and he may end up spending the rest of his days in Russia. […]

Netflix is trying to gain an unfair advantage over its competitors by setting up "fast lanes" for its content, according to a Republican regulator at the Federal Communications Commission. […]

The Netflix program in question, known as Open Connect, stores video content inside the networks of Internet service providers so that the content doesn't need to travel as far to reach viewers at home. The result is often faster service, and Netflix has urged ISPs to participate in the program by letting the company connect proprietary boxes to the ISPs' internal networks. To date, "hundreds" of broadband companies have agreed, according to Netflix. But others, including major providers like Comcast and Verizon, have balked — leading to declines in streaming quality until Netflix started signing separate, paid agreements with those ISPs to improve service. […]

Perhaps due to the snowball effect of the Snowden revelations, never in history have conflicts over Internet governance attracted such widespread attention of policymakers and the general public. The increasing recognition of the Internet as a basic infrastructure supporting economic and social life has also drawn attention to the underlying institutional and technical systems necessary to keep the Internet operational and secure. An area once concealed in institutional and technological complexity is now rightly bracketed among other shared global issues – such as environmental protection and human rights – that have considerable global implications but are incongruous with national borders. […]

Drawing from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and previous research on global Internet governance, we argue that the understanding of Internet governance today requires a conceptual framework linking infrastructure and social control to an examination of the co-opting of Internet infrastructure by political and private entities alike for broader political and economic purposes. […]

In other words, systems of Internet governance and architecture are no longer relegated to concerns about keeping the Internet operational, secure, and expanding. These systems are now squarely recognized by policymakers, economic interests, and even citizens, as sites of intervention for achieving auxiliary purposes, whether protecting economic interests, influencing political conditions, or gaining real or even merely symbolic nation-state power over cyberspace. […]

This contribution provides a quick analysis of Facebook’s new terms and policies that will go into effect on 1 January 2015. The announcement was sent by e-mail and displayed as a notification on Facebook. However, research has shown that few people actually read the Terms of Service (TOS) or privacy policies (Bechmann, 2014; Böhme & Köpsell, 2010). The documents are often very long and complex, which makes them difficult to read. […]

In the updated policy, Facebook explicitly acknowledges that it is tracking its users to collect data. The following statement speaks to this: “We're continuing to improve ads based on the apps and sites you use off Facebook.” While Facebook previously denied tracking allegations, developer Nik Cubrilovic showed that Facebook’s ‘Like’ button still sends data back to the platform even when users had logged out. […]

If I share a link with my friends only and one of my friends re-shares this private link and her privacy settings are set to public, my private post will become public. This means that your friends can make your private content public. […]

Here's one flight delay that European Union citizens might appreciate: The European Parliament has grounded an agreement that would have sent more passenger data winging its way to Canadian law enforcers. And like other flight delays, it could have huge repercussions -- in this case for similar data exchange deals with the U.S. and Australia [...]

Parliament is concerned that building such a database to retain and share passengers' personal data could be illegal in the light of a ruling by the CJEU in May. That judgment invalidated EU laws requiring communications providers to retain metadata -- in much the same way as flight data would be retained under the PNR agreement -- because the laws interfered with fundamental privacy rights. [...]

It doesn't stop there though. The court ruling could also affect the EU-U.S. Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) Agreement under which some data from the SWIFT international bank messaging system is transmitted to U.S. authorities, again to fight terrorism. "That deal is really similar to the PNR agreement, and I'm really sure that we have to rethink it as well," if the CJEU's opinion on the deal is in line with the April data retention ruling, Sander said. […]

Former EU digital tzar Neelie Kroes’ net neutrality plans for the Continent may be chucked out by national governments. […]

EDRi head Joe McNamee says the draft waters down proposed protections, claiming that “without meaningful and enforceable net neutrality provisions” the law would achieve exactly the opposite of an open internet. […]

Advocacy group La Quadrature du Net (QdN) described the revised draft as a “betrayal” and a “slap in the face” to everyone who fought to preserve the open internet. “EU governments are giving in to the shameless lobbying of dominant telecom operators,” said Félix Tréguer, co-founder of QdN. […]

Here come more leaks, and more reasons to suspect that the European Union is not going to get the hard-won net neutrality law it seemed likely to get just months ago. […]

After last week’s letter from new European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker to his commissioners, suggesting that former digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes’s “Telecom Package” will be pulled and started again as a “Digital Single Market Package”, digital rights group EDRi has published documents that appear to show the neutering of that legislative package’s net neutrality provisions. […]

Gone: The definition of “net neutrality”. Gone: The definition of “specialized services”. Instead, the documents say that discussions are “converging” around a “principles-based approach, in order not to inhibit innovation and to avoid technological developments making the regulation obsolete.” […]

PS — In a public Q&A session this afternoon, new digital economy commissioner Günther Oettinger (who bailed on the session after a surprisingly short 40 minutes) said: “Our proposal for internal market telecommunications legislation is aimed at clearly defining what is meant by network neutrality.” In the context of the Council removing such clear definitions from the Telecom Package, this may again suggest that the compromise will be torn up and the legislative process rebooted.

In the ongoing saga of patent trolls, here is an article on a victory against them in the US:

"It's no secret in the tech world that there have been a lot of ridiculous software patents over the years, but the one taken to court by patent-holding company Ultramercial stands out. The patent, invented by Dana Howard Jones, basically describes a process of watching an online ad in exchange for viewing a video. An appeals court opinion (PDF) out this morning has invalidated the Jones patent."